Post by Theropod on Nov 26, 2014 16:35:44 GMT

Many of you have already noticed that this forum is extremely inactive, at least when compared to our earlier months. This can be owed to many factors, of course. I am aware that we all have lives out there, but could we try to have a rise in activity here? We have a very nice community, and I, for one, wouldn't want to see this go. This forum is a bit more than a year old, and I think the few prime months we've had weren't enough at all.

One recent hypothesis I've had about the reason for inactivity is that I've once introduced a rule disencouraging random conversations in threads, and I feel like the forum's inactivity started taking its toll around there. For this same reason, I will no longer disencourage random, off-topic conversations in threads. Our community is based a lot around talking to eachother, sharing ideas and insights, tips and the like. So I don't feel like we need to be privated from the right of talking about whatever we want to.

Seeing as this is my current opinion on the issue, I no longer encourage people to make all of their posts "meaningful contributions". This is a forum with a wide variety of topics to discuss, but that is not all that is needed for its activity, and I believe giving the users here the right to talk more openly should not do any harm.

Post by Monolophosaurus on Nov 26, 2014 17:26:55 GMT

This forum is quite inactive, but literally less than a few weeks ago, it was filled with people, but apparently that still is not as much as it used to be.

I did notice that over 70% of all forum members are completely inactive.

Also shouldn't rule number 4 be completely eliminated then? I saw you updated the rules, but in rule 3 it says "users may post what they like" but in rule 4 it says "please post good contributions" or something similar. Isn't that a bit conflicting?

Post by thesporerex on Nov 30, 2014 2:16:37 GMT

The main reasons from the inactivity was various members leaving, the fighting, community expansion, loss of interest and the communities size. The community is too small to support itself and the subject matter for it is very specific. There are 6 members here with more than 1 thousand posts(Me, Theropod, Cameron, Andrew, Liam and Whitney). Add them together and you get almost if not more than 11,000 posts. The gap between the 6 most active members and the rest was a lot smaller back in the day but still. Lack of interest, that is what killed the community. Unless we get a huge amount of really interested members which is highly unlikely as if there were interested dinosaur pivoters they would have joined already. So its very likely this forum will remain in its current state; sadly.

Post by Theropod on Nov 30, 2014 4:20:35 GMT

We don't have a very specific subject. As you can see, if that was the case, we would have never achieved the activity we had back then, seeing as Pivot was getting perhaps even less attention than it does now. This lack of interest could maybe be owed to many factors, but I think a lack of new things could have contributed to it.

Post by thesporerex on Nov 30, 2014 13:55:37 GMT

Pivot is one thing, dinosaur pivoting is another. Dinosaur pivoting is a very specific focus. Not only that this website was only advertised through dinosaur pivoting which only dinosaur pivoters would see. Also that activity wasn't much all in all as it was just around 10-15 people posting more regulaly. 10-15 isn't a huge number of people its the posts that made it so active. No one has motivation to post anymore which is sad.

Post by Theropod on Nov 30, 2014 16:55:27 GMT

A forum's activity is not just necessarily how many people are posting, but how much they're posting, seeing as a forum without members is just a page on the web. And although dinosaur pivoting is very specific, it is not the only thing we can talk about on here. Plus, it was mainly advertised through dinosaur pivoting, but many users got here for other reasons.

Post by thesporerex on Nov 30, 2014 19:05:09 GMT

A forum's activity is not just necessarily how many people are posting, but how much they're posting

From my previous post No one has motivation to post anymore which is sad.With the same people posting comes less motivation. Doing the same thing for months makes people lose interest. The community couldn't expand so it collasped in on itself.

Post by Theropod on Nov 30, 2014 20:22:05 GMT

I was addressing this part of your post, not anything else:

Also that activity wasn't much all in all as it was just around 10-15 people posting more regulaly

Despite the fact there weren't too many people, the forum did get many daily posts, making it an active place, regardless of the number of people posting them. This is the same reason why two people can be talking to eachother actively - two isn't a high number, but is it impossible for two people to conversate actively?

On your last sentence, that is true, which is why we need the introduction of new content (and also why the off-topic section gets a good amount of posts, even now).